A MUSEUM will hold a specialist wool market, complete with alpacas, to celebrate the patron saint of wool-combers.

The St Blaise Wool Market will take place at Bradford Industrial Museum on Sunday February 3 - the feast day of the beatified bishop.

The event will mark the significance of wool to Bradford’s industrial past and have stalls selling woollen yarns, textiles and hand looms, as well as fun family activities including spinning and weaving demonstrations.

There will also be food, a pop up pub, a choir and brass band and appearances from alpacas.

It has been organised by Glyn Watkins, who has been working to bring the St Blaise Festival back to Bradford for years, with the help of the Bradford Council run Museum with sponsorship from Napoleons Casino and Salamander Brewery.

Bishop Blaise is the patron saint of wool-combers. A physician and bishop in Armenia he was believed to have lived around the end of the 3rd century.

He was reported to have been tortured by being flayed using pins from a wool-comb and beheaded because he refused to renounce his faith.

The event runs from 10am to 4pm.

Stalls will include local companies selling knitting gifts including hand-dyed British wool, fibres and equipment for felt making and spinning, luxury and lace-weight yarns, haberdashery, knitting patterns and accessories and products made from alpaca wool.

Bradford was once known as Worstedopolis due to the number of mills and wool processing businesses including wool-combers that operated in the district and up until 1825 the wool-combers of the district would hold a parade through the city to celebrate their patron saint. It was a four day festival where one of the wool-combers would dress as Bishop Blaise and parade through the town.

Maggie Pedley, Libraries, Museums and Galleries Manager at Bradford Council, said: “Though the mill where the Industrial Museum is based was originally built as a small worsted spinning mill, this is our first wool market.

"We have two ‘Bishop Blaise’ coats that were worn in the parades in our collection. One from Bradford and one from Keighley, as well as some other memorabilia from these parades and we will be putting some of this on display as part of the event. I would encourage anyone with an interest in Bradford’s woollen history to visit the museum for this event.”